holding hands

The only things keeping me grounded at the moment are Nintendo games, Raymond Chandler and Saul Bellow. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. My tastes could be decidedly less wholesome, and no doubt they would be were I still in Melbourne, or hanging out in Tokyo with the boys. As for The Adventures of Augie March, I have rarely been so impressed by the density and scope of any work of art, and that it could be the product of a singular mind, calling upon nothing more but narrative skill and delicate observation of the intricacies of human existence just make it all the more inspiring.

It just feels so complete, as Bellow can address everything from nihilism to professional relationships to class struggles through the prism of middle American life in the 20th century with such clarity, and identifies hidden motivations, weaknesses, and agendas in every character it introduces, from lowly union foremen, the the numerous women who come and go, to the matriarchal Grandma, to Augie’s various mentors, and so on.

Not to mention that the plot and pacing are nothing short of immaculate; characters’ true intentions are only ever slightly hinted at so as not to prematurely spoil any eventual climax or create unnecessarily gratuitous tension where there need not be any. Nevertheless, through the strength of Bellow’s descriptions alone we feel like we know the characters well already, so that their actions never come as a complete surprise, either. Everyone is flawed, undoubtedly even more so than Augie himself in all his restlessness. And that’s the thing; it’s so human, it doesn’t romanticise except where absolutely necessary, life is unfair and it doesn’t shy away from this fact. Augie’s biggest struggle is between his desire to preserve his own integrity and the weight of his aspirations.

The thing felt like it lost steam over the last 100 pages or so; since Augie spends the entire first half of the book talking about Grandma Lausch and Einhorn, it seems slightly rushed when he joins the army, goes on three tours of duty, marries, and resolves with his estranged older brother within the space of a couple of chapters.

Anyway, after months of toil, I finally finished it a week ago, and I’m worried that whatever I get stuck into next will either be too lightweight or comparably far too existential and depressing. Options include Tender is the Night, Cat’s Cradle, The Trial, and Speak, Memory, something I’ve been threatening to read for years. I guess this is what happens when I try to prepare reading lists months in advance – my moods and expectations change, and then I feel like a petulant kid being forced into doing some kind of boring homework when I have to start a new book without an entire bookshop at my disposal.

I’m gonna go ahead and call this movie ‘death affirming.’ It’s almost perfectly acted and despite a fairly predictable ending, still works really well. The characters are well balanced, suitably eccentric when they need to be and yet always compelled by real and honest motivations, rooted firmly in compassion for their families and their fellow man.

Personally, I had no idea these kinds of professions were so scorned in Japan, and really, you would think that someone with such responsibility would at least be quietly respected, but apparently not. The movie’s greatest success is how it frames the deceased body as a vessel for transgression, as much for the living as for the dead. It really ends up being quite reverential, and some of the embalming (is that the right word?) scenes are painfully, wonderfully emotional, without any dialogue being necessary.

I wasn’t ever really sure where the cello-playing aspect was supposed to fit in, other than as a showcase for the lead actor’s obvious cello-shredding skills. But that’s OK, as it lent a nice subtle soundtrack to the proceedings.

All in all, a pretty good movie.

Haneke is a director who really matters. This guy makes films that are not only deeply disturbing, but very relevant. Think you know what a scary movie is? Go watch Hidden and get back to me.

Anyway, his new one The White Ribbon is quite a departure from his other films. For a start, it’s much broader in scope, is set eighty years ago and is shot in black and white. I guess many of the themes are familiar: guilt and shame, violence and repression; but given it’s historical context I think this film is even more salient than his other works, even if perhaps it’s not as purely entertaining or thrilling. Haneke has insisted that we’re not supposed to see the movie as simply a foreboding prelude to the atrocities of Nazi Germany and World War 2, but as a snapshot of ignorance, intolerance and terrorism in all it’s forms.

The acting is top-shelf, production values are through the roof, and to be fair there are some truly gripping scenes, but overall I just wasn’t as engaged for the whole duration, like I was with Hidden. This is serious, formal film making, and I fear it’s just too cool, too self-aware, too detached to ever really penetrate. Nevertheless, definitely not for the weak of heart or short of patience.

Also, it became clear to me as I watched The White Ribbon that the only German phrase I have remembered from my high school days is keine ahnung. That figures.

OK, enough of the heavy stuff. Raymond Chandler has been keeping me entertained and rescuing me from the depths of being-foreign-and-alone-at-Christmastime-related despair through the strength of his biting dialogue alone. Here are a few choice cuts from the first fifty or so pages of Farewell, My Lovely:

“His smile was as cunning as a broken mousetrap.”

“Suspicion climbed all over her face, like a kitten, but not so playfully.”

“She was as cute as a washtub.”

“It was Malloy all right, taken in strong light, and looking as if he had no more eyebrows than a French roll.”

“Dames lie about anything – just for practise.”

And, arguably my favourite so far:

“She’s a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud and if she has washed her hair since Coolidge’s second term, I’ll eat my spare tyre, rim and all.”

Man, people just aren’t as eloquent (or as charming, apparently) as they were seventy years ago. I seriously believe that our tendency towards email, in all its benevolent, automated glory, is hampering not only our literacy, but the very stuff of our interpersonal relationships. In the past, a scorned lover would compose page upon tear-stained page of hateful yet poetic hand-written prose in order to purge him or herself of heartache. Nowadays, retribution is as easy as uploading a photo to Facebook. Yikes! The sad thing is, even the retorts are borderline unintelligible.

But seriously. As recently as ten years ago, flirting with a girl involved carefully synchronised ‘chance’ meetings, a delicate dance of hints dropped here and there at measured intervals, and a whole lot of good timing and luck. These days, it’s as easy as dropping a text message: ‘hey. i wna ride u like a black mercedes.’ Charming, no?

Yes, my eloquence is slowly dying, and with it, my patience and tact. I only have myself to blame for this, and I feel the only proper remedy would be self-imposed exile from the internet, and more time spent with the likes of Chandler, Bellow, Nabokov and those countless others who express so much with so (comparatively) little.

I bought a snazzy little netbook computer! It’s an Eee PC 1005HA.

Inluded with the iPhone to give a proper sense of scale.

In fact, I’m using it right now. The rad silver colour is not available outside Japan, so TAKE THAT, WESTERN CONSUMER MARKET! What’s more, the construction feels way more solid than my pricey elite Dell machine. It’s running Windows 7, effortlessly installed off a 4GB SDHC card, and does everything I need, like typing, and wasting my life on stupid websites. Also, with the strengthening of the Aussie dollar, this stuff has become ludicrously cheap. Like $350 kind of cheap. Party!

On a more personal note. I’ve resolved to spend the winter break seriously improving my Japanese. The last couple of months (and in particular, the last month itself) have seen my conversation skills increase significantly, and although I still have more than my fair share of furrowed-brow, panicky ‘wtf was that word again!?’ moments, at least I can keep a conversation more or less going now. I mean, that is, as long as the person I’m talking to doesn’t get bored and give up. To them, it must be like talking to a toddler with learning disabilities.

I did learn something interesting lately though; according to one of my supervisors who studied linguistics at university, dyslexia is far less prevalent in Japan (and presumably also in China and Korea) than in the Western world. This must be something to do with both the form of their characters and their grammatical constructions. After all, it’s hard for most English speakers to imagine a first language where each ‘letter’ corresponds to an entire syllable; where words can be pronounced phonetically without any danger of misplacing stress or timing, and where an entire universe of meaning can be contained within one simple symbol, such as 空, or 人. The Japanese and Chinese don’t learn to spell, so much as they learn to paint pictures of the world through language. Likewise, reading isn’t a constant deconstruction of bunches of letters, or educated guessing at the appropriate phoneme; everything is there as it’s written, except in the case of an unfamiliar kanji character, where, upon encountering these new characters, a Japanese person will simply ask their neighbour,  どういう読むの? or この漢字の読み方は何ですか? (“How the fsk do you read this?”).

Furthermore, owing to the grammatical hierarchy of the language, the relevant reading for any given kanji is immediately apparent to any native speaker of Japanese; there is no guess work necessary. It’s pretty remarkable.

According to The Language Instinct, Japanese (and to an extent, Korean) are something like language orphans which have evolved separately, leaving behind little grammatical resemblance to other East Asian languages. This isn’t so hard for me to believe, because as I’ve said before, Japanese more or less resembles the exact grammatical inverse of something like English, and I’m sure this has a considerable impact on the structure of society over here, especially when compared with our own.

The main point I wanted to make when I started this huge theoretical rant, however, was that I’m at a point where Japanese people no longer feel comfortable gossiping about me in my presence, because they fear I might just be able to understand them. Pretty satisfying in one sense, although I was kinda enjoying being able to eavesdrop as I pleased.

Well, on that note, it looks like I’m gonna be all too alone for Christmas, and unless I get my act together and ask for paid leave, I’ll be sat at my office all day without any other kindred spirit (ie. lost soul) in sight to share the holiday with. I’m not a religious person, but I guess I am a pretty sentimental one, and despite all my misgivings about Christmas and the sham that it is, I do feel an unwelcome sense of isolation as the year draws to an end. It’s not that I’m depressed. There’ll be plenty of time for that come 2010. But I just kinda wish I had stayed in contact with more of you this year. So I’m sorry. I guess that’s it.

Stay tuned for my best and worst of 2009, along with the usual solemn reflections and empty promises, in the next edition!

So long.

falling pianos

I’ve always been of the opinion that most people are far too hasty to distinguish between intellectual life and physical life. Why do we do this? People place an incongruent value on scholarship and other intellectual pursuits, while frowning upon drug use, promiscuous sex, etc. Even those that work out all the time seem to be sniggered at by academic types who invariably value mind over body. It is no coincidence, therefore, that these people are usually out of shape and without any tangible sense of style. Conversely, gym junkies like to scoff at intellectuals who spend more time with their faces in books than getting tans. This is most obviously manifest in the common ‘nerd’ stereotype.

I’m advocating a healthy balance between the two. I don’t see why we need to neglect our physical desires, or give inordinate amounts of attention to intellectual appetite. They are both equal parts of the same whole, and what’s more, they both exert the same monolithic influence over it, whether it’s for better or worse. Truly balanced and sensible people should look for pleasure not simply of the body but of the mind, and seek wisdom not only through quiet reflection but through actions.

I’ve been forced into this perspective recently through my own single-mindedness, and the realisation that to absorb oneself either in books or exercise alone is no remedy for restlessness, frustration or inadequacy. Well, the scales have levelled out pretty nicely, or at least they had, until I went ahead and put my foot right into one of the most uncomfortable and regrettable situations of my life in Japan so far on Saturday night. But heaven knows, and I’ve said this a hundred times before, that a public blog full of self-indulgent rants is hardly the place to go into juicy details.

I don’t know why Japanese culture and language attracts such hardcore, militant foreigners. Similarly, I don’t understand the bullshit false modesty that accompanies so many of this country’s permanent foreign residents. Shyness is an inherent part of Japanese culture, sure. But it very unbecoming on foreigners, especially since it makes their endless lust to fit in over here all the more blatant. The irony is that is has the opposite effect: it just makes you look like a wanker, when I ask you if you can speak Japanese, and you say no, and then I find out that you are 1-kyuu level. Have you ever even known what it’s like to not be able to speak Japanese? When my friends and family back home ask me if I can speak the language, I give them the honest answer: I know enough to get around, day to day, enough to order food and ask for directions. Nothing more. But Japan seems to be the only country that gets this kind of cult following from the West, and while modesty might be endearing on the natives, it is pretty sickening on foreigners.

You can’t fire me, I quit.

Way too tired to write anything more in here at the moment. I’ve gone way too hard lately and I’m exhausted. Today was rainy, and my bike was stolen. Not the best conditions under which to decide to write a blog entry, but that’s life. I’m hoping I can straighten myself out over the next week or so and leave this trail of destruction behind.

it’s a jungle out there

This blog is rapidly turning into a place where I can air my identity crises. The crucial difference between this blog and real life, though, is that around here I can’t be interrupted. In their past lives, my blogs were forums for confidence issues and (barely) veiled jabs at various girls who had gon’ up and don’ me wrong, but I guess these days my problems are more existential in nature, and are probably, in the long run, better off for it.

My desk is a hideous mess of Australiana (dig that rad kookaburra), lollies I use to bribe minors, Japanese textbooks that I have skimmed, not read, and a variety of teaching materials that, surprisingly, have been getting a pretty solid workout of late. While it is true that at times I may have been something of a lazy ALT, that trend has definitely been reversed as I’ve been able to identify the more bothersome areas of my job and work on improving those, rather than the aimless stressing of eras past. I’m steadily realising that bored, unmotivated students aren’t the problem; it’s disorganised co-workers. I am repeatedly inundated by inconsiderate and illogical requests for help with classes that aren’t mine, translations of things of a singularly personal nature, and so on. I believe the thought process resembles something like this: Darren is an ALT, and ALTs aren’t busy or just don’t work very hard. だから、Darren mustn’t be busy. It’s beautifully Socratic.

Anyway, in light of these revelations, job satisfaction is at an unusual high, as I have adopted an even more nihilistic approach to my job: I chat with students whenever I feel like it, and about whatever I please. I play DS with them and snap unflattering photos of them. I ask them about their boyfriends and girlfriends and point out cute girls in magazines. So when it comes to classes, most of them are comfortable enough with me by now to play along with whatever I come up with. However, I think the main thing that has improved my working life is that, as the months have rolled by of late, I have become increasingly willing to strike up a conversation in punctuated Japanese, and the kids have started to realise that I am actually a living organism of equal or greater intellectual capability, one who has thoughts and feelings of his own and the gift of self-expression. Who would have thought – a foreigner!

I’m definitely beyond repair. When I start visiting – and enjoying – websites such as this (a cute girl appears in the day!) there seems to be little chance of redemption. To make things even worse, this link was sent to me by a female Japanese friend of mine. There’s just something irresistible about homely girls posing for coy photos and bashfully describing their personal traits.

The longer I spend observing other cultures, the more convinced I become that the world we inhabit is governed primarily by sex and money. The sex industry in Japan is omnipresent and, as a young woman, there is no better way to make easy money than to become a hostess or waitress in a fancy bar. Middle-aged men pay through the nose to merely be in the company of these creatures, and while prostitution itself is outwardly frowned upon, its no secret that money can buy everything, the porn industry is rampant, and the vast majority of establishments fronting as pleasant, classy lady bars are little more than extortionately-priced brothels. On a more personal level, it seems that wherever I go in the world, the thing that impresses the majority of girls with the most boring regularity is a boy with money and the willingness to flaunt it, both on himself and on his girl. The extravagance that passes for class and style in Japan can be truly sickening, especially when a dude in parachute pants can be considered cool just because they cost hundreds of dollars. Oh, and on that note: fuck you, Ed Hardy. I hate you and everything you create.

I always misspell the word ‘opinion’ and it comes out looking something like ‘onion.’ Perhaps there’s something in that.

Dudes. I’ve been all over this new Paramore single for a week now. How is it better than anything they have done in the past? Let me count the ways: Hayley’s voice isn’t as pitch-perfectly auto-tuned as the last album, and, moreover, she sounds way more pissed off on this track. Whilst ‘Misery Business’ was definitely a catchy (dare I say good?) song, it always seemed a little trite and forced to me. On this one, she simply spits out the lyrics in a much more natural meter, and the whole song is better off for it. Next, this song plays with time signatures and syncopation in a way that would make even the most capable metal bands envious. Its structure consists of multiple layered elements and constantly blurs the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge distinction. The arpeggios in the pre-chorus and breakdown are simply insane. Paramore’s drummer is awesome and is clearly the most impressive thing about the band besides Hayley’s voice. Listen carefully next time!

This movie was rad. The first half of District 9, in particular, takes the now-familiar mockumentary style into pretty interesting and challenging territory, offering a charicature of bureaucracy that is comical, satirical and confrontingly honest. Its themes are superficially obvious, and its a kind of wonder that it has taken so long for sci-fi films to come up with this idea. But the allegory extends further that just ‘how should governments deal with illegal immigrants,’ into far more personal territory: how do we overcome language barriers with foreigners? Is there any way to deal with the issue whilst retaining personal sensitivities? Indeed, can there even be a non-violent resolution to these kinds of problems? It nods towards the pervasive racism issues with a handful of ingenious quips, the kinds of slips-of-tongue usually reserved for mid-level politicians that are likely to see their superiors caught up in some heated PR backpedalling:

“I mean, you can’t say they don’t look like that, that’s what they look like, right? They look like prawns.”

It is amazingly well-acted, particularly by Sharlto Copley, who carries the second half of the film single-handedly and prevents it from ultimately becoming little more than a gruesome FPS-inspired alien blastfest, although even Copley can’t save it from crashing and bashing its way to a somewhat underwhelming end. District 9 combines some of the cinematic elements of Independence Day, Children of Men, The Host and…well, Starship Troopers, but its South African orientation gives it a pretty unique feel overall. Definitely see this movie!

Well, there was going to be more, but now there isn’t. ‘Til next time!

days of yore

I figure I owe it to myself to blog in the old-fashioned way, before this whole Japan experiment got started, back when I had too many dreams and aspirations to fit into my days (as opposed to not enough). I’ve been reading over some of my old blogs – from my adolescent halcyon days – and they are quite seriously littered with hilarious anecdotes and controversy. Like our anonymous stalker who kept prank-calling us around the clock, seven days a week and the thirty-two comments it spawned. Or my ingenious relationship smasher service (patent pending). Here’s a quote I am particularly fond of, presented here in it’s original letterbox format (i.e. without any grammar or capitalisation):

as for those people who believe that soccer is the ‘world game’: i’d like to see all those square-jawed, golden-haired euro trash pretty boys sacrifice one fucking hour of their time and earnings to get together in the name of charity, not to mention saving lives. soccer is a fucking joke and if you support it you are naive and stupid.

This blog has always been marginally more serious than my previous efforts, though, so for that reason I have avoided late night ramblings or personal anecdotes. Plus I’m not sure how many readers I’ve got. Who knows who might be watching. Probably all those future employers who want to recruit me but are afraid (owing to my prior history) I might slip up and are therefore tracking my net footprint. 

Here’s a list of things I miss about Australia.

• Good coffee. I thought I could do without it, and for a while, I could, but there’s only so much tepid dishwater I can reasonably be expected to imbibe. I guess the only reason I still do it is that I would lose my freaking mind sitting here for eight hours a day without the intermittent excitement of getting up to make myself a hot drink.
• Fish and chips and meat pies. I would make a killing if I opened up a fish and chip shop over here. Y’all gots no idea. If the Japanese are up for anything, it’s food, and they love their poutato furai. I could charge an exorbitant amount of money for this and get away with it. As for the meat pies…well, it sure beats the tepid floating menace that is oden when the weather is cold.
• Talking. To people.
• Outspoken bigotry, impatience, impoliteness. Gotta keep things interesting, you know?
• Music. Melbourne famously has one of the best live music scenes in the world. I have become far too accustomed to going out at night without music or, worse still, making my own (karaoke).
• Being able to keep up with current affairs. Watching the news over here is pointless, because even though I can’t understand most of it, I can definitely understand enough of it to know that it is insular, blinkered and (really) only a step or two away from flat-out nationalist propaganda. At least in Australia, where I can speak the language, I have the freedom to select where I get my news and opinions from.
• Learning stuff. When not battling with a language, one is much more freely able to research and investigate topics that they find interesting. My weekly excursions into bookstores have completely stopped and I only buy the occassional thing off Japanese Amazon.
• My family and friends. Somewhat self-explanatory.
• Over-saturation of Aussie rules football. This is probably my number one most-missed thing from Australia. Fkn BigPond in all their benevolent wisdom have made it impossible for people outside of Australia to watch their videos online, thus shunning the biggest demographic of people that would ever want to watch their shitty Windows Media format streaming videos online. Also I miss cricket. It is has just finished being summer back home, after all.
• Phone conversations. I remember talking to a good friend of mine in year 12 every time we had a literature essay due. We would spend hours making pointed and highly intelligent observations to each other and eventually digress and start talking about eighteenth birthday parties and school assemblies and how we wanted to start a lounge act (still the best unfulfilled dream of my life…and there have been many).
• Philosophy. As you are no doubt already aware, most of the thinking I do over here relates to being able to communicate with the people. I used to think about social trends and the media and artificial intelligence and the artistic integrity of video games and things like that, but it’s hard over here. Also I’m a lot busier.

Totally got a care package in the mail last night. It contains all kinds of survivalist rations. I am a hoarder of the first degree. But I am one with mini Mars Bars and Minties and deodorant. Yeah I still stink though. My stomach is growling at me like a caged animal cause I haven’t fed it today. It seems like for as long as there has been a recorded history I have had the same anxieties about accomplishment and procrastination. Would it be better for me to just ignore it and spend as much time as possible distracting myself with meaningless (let’s call them ‘cultural’) endeavours? Or is this something I need to address swiftly and comprehensively? I guess I’m just searching for some kind of evidence that my life since finishing high school hasn’t been a complete waste of time. I wouldn’t dare venture something so stark as a list, though. It would end up short and flaccid.

Dude in my office compulsively brushes his teeth without toothpaste, gargles without mouthwash, and slurps all his food and drink, from instant noodles to plain old tap water. So much of the conversation that goes on in my office is hollow and formal. Here’s a full transcript of everything that was said in the last hour:

“Ah! Muramatsu-sensei. You brought the bento! You have my sincerest gratitude!”
“Why no, it was simply my pleasure to bring you this bento!”
“How is your honourable bento?”
“But of course, it is utterly delectable!”
“I will now return the empty bento to the office!”
“Shibahara-sensei, you’re too kind! Will you be eating bento again tomorrow?”
“I certainly shall! Tomorrow is the last day of bento!”
“You are indeed correct, Shibahara-sensei.”

I suppose when this is all I get to listen to each day, I am actually better off not knowing much Japanese. If they only knew that I am talking about them right now!

I couldn’t sleep last night. Not sure why. I had an itch on my leg (the outside of my leg, perverts) that I couldn’t stop itchin’, and maybe the old electric blanket was up a little bit too high. I read yesterday that when sleeping, your body needs to reach a minimum core temperature for the sleep to be meaningful. It always leaves the next morning. It never says thankyou and I feel cheated and used. Anyway I suppose having the electric blanket up too high would explain why I feel even more lethargic today than I have in a long time despite going to bed relatively early.

Yeah, the blogs were definitely better than they are now. Post more comments, people. I know you’re out there. You’re not alone. After all, the internet is the one place where you can really, truly, be yourself, right?

but the thing is, i just can’t listen to meaningless music anymore. why listen to a song that says ‘i love you’ when you can listen to a song that says ‘this list is what went right, your name is written twice’? i dunno.

i’ve been sitting here so long, staring at a blank page that should be full of either the musings of a poet or the calculations of a genius. unfortunately no amount of rhyme or reason can break this spell that i’m in. it’s a daydream at night, but it’s not a fiction. it is a life, or so they say. is a life spent materialising the sensations we encounter, every day and every night? that is how a life should be sold, not bought. i’m in a different time zone. i have a different exchange rate. my all-ordinaries are fucking strange. my mind set sail before i had checked it in. i bought insurance when i should have gotten assurance.

matter of fact, i’ll make a journal entry at 2:20am. who says maths exams can’t be fun on five hours sleep and even less time studying. i do. i’ll make it fun. i’ll make it fun by pretending that two plus two equals five. or that complex numbers are not in fact any different than real numbers. in fact, complex numbers often make more sense than real numbers. here’s a complex number: there are 31,536,000 seconds in a year. here’s a real number: about 400 people between 15 and 24 commit suicide in australia each year.

Yeah, I got a lot of catching up to do. Over and out.

life, the universe, and everything

There are always a few peripheral characters in the Pixar films that I fall utterly in love with. In the case of Wall-E, it’s the adorable clean-up drone M-O (they always boast clever names, too), whose facial expressions come entirely in the form of LED eyes yet manage to capture all the curiosity of an intelligent animal who is coming to terms with human ingenuity.

Which leads me, of course, to Wall-E. This is a beautiful, breathtaking film in every sense of the word. From the scene it paints of the inevitable convergence of the current human condition (both from an environmental perspect and a social one), to the promulgation of corporation to an extra-terrestrial scale, to our dependence upon automatic processes and loss of love for learning, to the effects of infinite loneliness and longing, Wall-E as a film transcends and redefines animation itself. There, I said it. It has aesthetic value that is surely equal to any film as well as philosophical implications that are relevant to us – today – on countless levels…and it conveys most (if not all) of this without dialogue. Think about it. Everything Wall-E achieves, he does so without words, without a soul, without religion. All he has is his curiousity and his faultless, incorruptible innocence.

The depth of field animation, and in particular, the depiction of weightlessness in space is just beautiful. There is no other word for it. Wall-E and Eve’s dance in space is surely the most beautiful and touching sequence in Pixar’s history. Oh, and just quietly…things are still looking up.

I guess this means I’m gonna have to start thinking about my best and worst of 2008. It will be a bit of a tough call, as I’ve been uncharacteristically occupied, at least over the last few months, and have partied more vigorously, more regularly, this year than I ever have before. The result? I must be getting old. I have that familiar feeling that time is flying by. I feel the year(s) whisking by at unfathomable speed with utter disregard for patience or etiquette. This year, more than any other, I have caught myself in moments of contemplation and admiration at the infinite serenity that the world offers by virtue of its simple existence. There are patterns and balance and beauty to be found everywhere if you’re only willing to take a few minutes out of your day to sit back and think about things

Stop worrying about your job. Stop worrying about your boyfriend. Stop worrying about your deadlines. Stop worrying about money. Take a look around. A speckled bird, humbly inspired, ran across the road, when it could have flown.

I’ve been thinking a bit about Christmas back in Australia, and how I’m kinda really gonna miss it. The weather is always nice (re: not freezing), and it’s always accompanied by a pretty pervasive good mood, plenty of eating and drinking, and of course, the promise of cricket, parties and more amazing weather. Some of my fondest memories of the past few summers have been Boxing Days, Australia Days, New Years’ Eves, that sort of thing. Apparently New Year’s Eve isn’t such a big deal over here, at least not in the same sense. From what I can ascertain, it involves docile trips to shrines and such and reverence for the first sunrise of the new year. It’s a far cry from the utter immorality of New Year’s Eve back in Australia. Back there, you’re lucky if there is a shirt in sight, or a non-alcoholic beverage. My Aussie friends and I have already started plotting a rampage on January 26th. Rain, hail, snow or tsunami, it will definitely involve shorts, thongs, outdoor barbecues and (more than likely) Vegemite and Tim Tams (since they are the only uniquely Aussie foods you can buy over here).

Oh, did you guys hear? A black guy is gonna be President of the United States. There’s something to mull over the old noggin’. I can’t possibly add anything to further elucidate the significance of this. It’s so strange being in a country like Japan, where national pride runs so deep but general knowledge about politics is so limited. Seriously, beyond local council elections, the average Japanese person has no idea about the political situation in their own country, let alone internationally. It’s because their elections are structured differently from the ones we are used to, and because the Emperor and his family still carry such symbolic importance, that the image of solidarity and stability is unfaltering, even during times of severe economic panic. Of course, the fact that the media is so saturated with ‘major’ issues like two Russian-born sumo wrestlers getting caught smoking weed doesn’t do much to raise awareness of ‘lesser’ problems like war. This was front-page news for at least three weeks back in September and August. Why? Because sumo is the national sport, and anything resembling a blot on the integrity of the symbol that is Japanese nationalism is nothing less than the worst thing that could happen in this country.

Take a look at the flag, for further evidence:

It’s, uh, bold. To say the least. Even more so than when I was back in Australia, I have been depending on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report for my news, at least when it comes to America. I’m not quite so keen to read thousand-word articles on The Australian or The Age websites, though, on account of I’m already starting to see the waking world in bleary-eyed, pixelated format, and I don’t want to exacerbate the problem. But you know what’s great about high-speed internet? All forms of media are available on-demand. Give me convenience or give me death. Just don’t spoil the party, Mr. Rudd.

On a related note, I find the routinely inflammatory comments that appear on news websites absolutely fascinating. At the time of writing, the most recent comment on that article I linked to above reads as follows:

“I didn’t vote for the twit, I hope the people who did are satisfied we have a now have a monkey running our economy and our internet.”

So many great things about this post, not the least of which is the level of political engagement with the real issues at hand here. But it’s indicative of the vast majority of what constitutes ‘commentary’ on the internet. I believe most people’s internet practices have evolved so as to completely filter out all user comments, except in the case of community message boards, but the phenomenon of semi-anonymous propaganda is incredible. The ability to conceal one’s real agenda and distill one’s real motivations into a handful of characters is something that we are seeing for the first time in human history, and the manifestations are countless. What is it that compels people to comment on articles like this in the first place? Who do they think is actually reading them? Do they not realise the abstraction that occurs when you substitute your real name and address for an internet handle? It goes without saying that the vast majority of these comments would not be made in a real-life scenario, eg. in general conversation, or even during a political discussion amongst peers over dinner.

I feel like going back to university just to investigate things like this. In fact, I feel like going back to university full stop. Seeing how my students’ eyes widen when I explain that ‘percent’ comes from the Latin words ‘per’ and ‘cent,’ and that ‘per’ roughly equates to the Japanese possessive particle の(no), and that ‘cent’ means ‘hundred,’ is a great feeling. In these rare cases, I truly feel like I’m helping them learn, and that what I have to offer them is actually valuable and rewarding. I want to regain that feeling for myself.

It’s lunch time. I had better sign off and go make my presence felt.

Take care, friends.

the dark knight of the soul

Now that there’s less than a week remaining before I’m unceremoniously shipped out of Australia, air freight-style, the time is right for a blog post. I’ve been avoiding the fact that I haven’t been as dilligent or as timely as promised when it comes to updating this thing, and I guess that’s because I knew I would eventually have to write this very post and I wouldn’t know what to say. Well, here it is.

I’ve been spending the last few weeks getting ready. For those of you who have moved overseas before, you will know that ‘getting ready’ in this context more or less translates to ’spending heaps and heaps of money.’ Having never been a white-collar employee before now, I had to rush out and buy business attire, including a suit, which prompted more than one American Psycho-style moment of self-evaluation. Since discovering how difficult it really is to find stylish business clothes that I feel comfortable in (I’m trying to keep all pastel colours to a minimum here, which, if you take a look at the graduate job/overpriced race meeting crowd, is a lot harder than it should be), I find myself sneering at every ill-fitting jacket, poorly tied-up tie and tasteless shirt I encounter. Presumably, these people spend their entire waking lives being buttoned-down yes-men; I thought by now most of them would have realised how to dress themselves. Guess not. Anyway, it’s something that I haven’t paid any attention to until now.

I’m still in the process of trying to sell my car. Nobody wants it I guess. Come on people, it’s not like I’ve smashed it up that bad. At least, any damage is emotional, not physical. One thing I’m not going to miss in Japan is driving. To be fair, Melbourne’s traffic is becoming exponentially worse with every passing month, but to be in a place where public transport is as popular and ubiquitous as energy drinks or flannel shirts or Apple products is gonna be great. I’ll be stationed an hour and a half from Tokyo by shinkansen (aka death-defying anti-gravity train). But there are some things about Melbourne I’ll be missing.

A huge range of everything, thanks to our ever-increasing migrant communities, is one of them. Amazing bands and live music events are another, despite their extortionate prices. Cultural landmarks such as the Astor theatre, Flinders Street Station, the botanic gardens, Southbank, the MCG are as distinctive and as well-loved as any in other countries, and our innate sense of style far outclasses anything I’ve encountered in any other city (especially Sydney).

Of course, there are other things besides traffic that I won’t be missing. Like six dollars for a Metcard, fickle weather, being a native speaker and as such being subjected to the drivel that saturates newspapers, magazines, television and radio, disgraceful trendy nightspots and their accompanying clientele (although these aren’t endemic to Melbourne), the complete lack of a decent film/television industry, consistent apathy towards important political issues and, on the other hand, uninformed outspoken finger-pointing regarding uncontrollable ones (e.g. fuel prices), and so on.

Japan, on the other hand, doesn’t suffer from too many of these complaints. They have properly fast internet, perfect etiquette and rituals of generosity and politeness (us Westerners would do well to take note), local cuisine that is more about subtlety than sheer quantity and a zany fashion sense. It also boasts being one of the most consistently romanticised countries on earth (at least, from a Western point of view) and, finally and most importantly, a healthy whaling industry.

While there is something to be said for being organised, I have learned over the last couple of years that to try to control too many of the billions of variables that make up your day-to-day life only guarantees two things: firstly, that you will end up feeling frustrated, and also that you will inevitably miss most of the finer details that make the ordinary into something worth noticing, remembering. I know that my preconceptions about Japan will mostly likely turn out to be well off the mark and I will someday come back to Melbourne with a completely different perspective on the country, its people and its culture, and I’m going into it without too many expectations. The only ones I do have are ones that I want and need to control, for my own good – greater independence, more creative output, that kind of thing. I’ve been completely exhausted for the last couple of weeks and to be honest it will be great just to arrive in Japan so I can finally sit back and just let things run their course.

The time I haven’t spent in a delirious state of hyperanimation has been used to get hideously drunk, sleep in late and play bucketloads of video games. For those of you in any doubt, we’re talking hardcore Nintendo DS gaming here. I’ve picked out a few choice game trailers for the unconvinced.

Nanostray 2. One of the hardest games I have played. Still stuck on level two.

The World Ends With You. Ultra-modern RPG and proof that the DS is the only platform you can find games with real style. Great soundtrack, too.

Jump! Ultimate Stars. Possibly the best handheld fighting game ever, featuring loads of playable anime and manga characters and seriously cool art style.

Sonic Rush. Light-speed Sonic goodness.

Space Invaders Extreme. A fantastic remake of a game that was in desperate need of a shot of adrenaline. As an aside, I more or less need to own this bag. It’s $80 at the only store I’ve seen it in, which is a flat-out joke for a PVC bag. Anyway.

Metal Slug 7. Insane shooter, not as hair-pullingly frustrating as Nanostray either which is a plus. To finish the whole game only takes about half an hour on easy mode but that’s not a problem.

So there you have it, and that is saying nothing of the huge catalogue of great adventure games on DS. It has been said before; I should probably be earning a commission for the promotional work I do on behalf of Nintendo, but I’m just happy to have a portable gaming console this powerfully awesome.

I was gonna do something of a review of The Dark Knight but it’s getting late. Let’s just say, forget the superhero genre. Forget any genre; this is as good a movie as you are likely to see this year. Strong characters across the board, fantastically bleak art direction (and countless expensive Armani suits) and clear-as-mud ethical and moral riddles are in danger of seeming superfluous to the incredible performance by Heath Ledger. Two hundred people collectively gasped after he delivered his first few lines as The Joker. I doubt any other infamous posthumous performance will be looked upon with such reverance; if anyone can think of one, I’m all ears. Let’s be perfectly honest; we have seen the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor awarded for much less. Don’t fail me now, Academy. Everything about this film is first-class and frankly embarrasses all other movie franchises of the last few years. And as I already mentioned, its themes are anything but preachy or obvious. Haunting, stylish, brilliant!

I guess that means the only other film I can’t wait to see this year is Wall-E. Hey Pixar, whatever happened to global release dates? Thanks a million. Now I’ll have to wait until December to see this in Japan. If I don’t download it first. Seriously; you would think a studio with their money and influence would realise that a synchronised global release date for their films would be one of the most obvious and effective ways to prevent piracy – if indeed movie piracy is as much of a big deal as you pretend it is. When studios are paying $250 million to make movies as horrendous as Spiderman 3, I have trouble believing it.

Either way, the movie looks unbelievable. Only Pixar have the balls to make a kids’ movie where the entire opening act is silent, and the plot of the movie opens the door for treating some seriously overdue ethical issues, for example our impending irreversible loneliness and a sense of responsibility for each other and for the environment. Ratatouille was great but didn’t feature any new plot devices or themes that weren’t already commonplace in animated films. I know this time I won’t be let down.

This has gone on long enough; for the rest of this week I’ll be running last-minute errands and tieing up loose ends; hopefully there’s time for a trip to the Art Deco exhibition as well. If all goes according to schedule I’ll also be leaving a parting gift for you, the Internet, and you can be sure I’ll be posting it up here as soon as I can. Until then, stay safe.

wants to see movies of his dreams

I guess it’s about time I started punctuatin’. If I’m going to take this blogging game (and myself) seriously, I guess I should. WordPress, for better or worse, still lacks any kind of mass-editing functionality (you will notice that this new theme made the text in my last post bigger than all the others) and there’s no way I’m going back to edit my older posts. But I can live with that shame. Always there to remind me of the shadow of a man I once was. What’s more, I guess I have certain standards to maintain from here on. But more about that later.

My trip to China did wonders for the old inspiration/imagination combo. Being idle in any one place – even somewhere as fantastic as Melbourne – is unhealthy, at least for someone like me who struggles with ideas about consuming versus creating. The architecture alone was enough to make me flip out, from the intricate designs adorning temples, to huge monuments and statues, to hyper-modern spaces like the People’s Square in Chengdu. Meanwhile, the Chinese themselves are fantastic. Fantastically interesting, anyway. I would be lying if I said I didn’t encounter any selfish or inconsiderate behaviour while was there, but as someone who enjoys simply observing people going about their daily business, it was fascinating. It’s definitely a place that really drives home the idea that we Westerners don’t have it all going for us; in fact, as far as the richness or authenticity of our culture, we are severely lacking in many respects. Unlike other areas that have been overrun by tourists, China (with the sole exception of Shanghai) still feels mostly real – while you may feel like you are accepted, as a white person I doubt you could ever feel like you truly understand the culture from the inside out.

So, the experience of being something of an outsider exposed to such a rich and intricate culture was properly eye-opening for me. Before I left, and countless times during my trip, whenever I told anybody I was travelling in China alone, I was usually met with incredulous looks, signifying either utter incomprehension as to why I would want to go there (when I could go to Bali instead, bro!) or disbelief as to how I could ever hope to do it on my own. The Chinese recognise the significance of their nation’s achievements and status, but are usually quite modest about its appeal to Westerners. I think that’s one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much; the fact that it’s not simply a party destination or retreat for spoilt white kids does make it more demanding, but infinitely more rewarding to see a country that’s still getting used to the idea of people like me just wanting to visit.

Basically, I would recommend a trip to China to anybody. Any age, any race, anybody. There is so much to do and see there that is mostly hidden from Western eyes and it is impossible not to fall in love with the food, the generosity of the people, the simplicity with which they go about their daily lives, the exuberance of the cities, the landmarks and historical sites, the art, everything. My only regret is that I couldn’t spend a far longer amount of time there; as I have said elsewhere, one would need a number of years to see it all.

Getting back to my original point, though, was that it did wonders for my sense of creativity. As a Westerner in China, you really need to make it happen for yourself. It’s not a one-way ride of consuming, using and abusing the country’s resources; there are countless sacrifices and trade-offs that you need to make every single day – in your pride, your reliance upon English to communicate, your privacy, and so on. And you will be inspired to take as much of it on board as is humanly possible. I felt more energised every day in China, no matter how utterly exhausted I happened to be, than I have in at least the last few years here in Australia, due to an endless enthusiasm to see and do as much as I could. Despite my much-publicised love for Melbourne, I have on many occasions felt bored here since I got home. It lacks the cohesion of a place like China (maybe this has something to do with their communist government?) and I have to say I did not miss seeing drab, dreary, depressed, middle-aged white collar business types shuffling onto the peak hour bus home every night, listening to James Blunt on their collective iPod Nanos. But the end result is that I came home with a renewed enthusiasm for, well, just about everything. And I’m not sure whether too many other places could give me that feeling, to be honest.

Time now, then, to turn eyes towards the future. After months of preparation, stress, and (let’s face it) waiting around, I finally got the call that I’ve been anticipating since November. I didn’t go about telling every single person that I had applied for the JET Programme for a few reasons. Firstly, because the turnaround is so slow. Secondly, because the chances of anybody getting in are realistically quite small (from what I can ascertain, I think only about one in seven applicants get selected, but definitely don’t quote me on that). Mostly, however, I lacked the confidence to think I would ever actually be one of those that made the cut. Well, I guess I did, and the Japanese government is paying for me to go over there and teach English in government schools for a whole year. Maybe even more, if I like it, and if they like me. Let’s be straight with each other, here: this is an infinitely better deal than working for an eikawa (private English-teaching companies – I daren’t call them schools), for a billion reasons, but I won’t get into them here. Anyway, that’s the reason for my new-found ‘professionalism’ when it comes to capitalising my blog posts and the likes – for someone who prides themselves on their proper (dare I say competent?) use of the English language, I have been unforgivably lazy, and if I’m gonna be heading overseas to try and make sure these kids get off on the right foot, I had better tidy up my own act first.

I guess it’s no secret that I’ve had a fascination with Japan for some time. Let the records show that this does in fact extend beyond cute schoolgirls and anime, although there is a time and place for everything (ironically, Japanese high schools). Of all the options I considered, the JET Programme was by far the most attractive and elusive, and I still can’t really believe that I’m going with them. I had more or less resigned myself to a few months of restless anticipation of what would inevitably end up being a rejection letter – imagine, if you will, my surprise when I got a personal phone call in the early hours of the morning last week (OK, it was more like 9am, but that is ungodly). I guess now I have a matter of weeks to ready myself for a complete overhaul of my sheltered and comfortable life in Melbourne, which will hopefully include a snappy new wardrobe with any luck. I already bought the laptop, the digital camera, the Nintendo DS in anticipation of someday knowing for sure that I will be going to Japan and putting them to good use, but honestly I never expected it would be upon me so soon. Admittedly, the whole process to this point has taken close to seven months, but it did give me the opportunity to reassess certain things and have other experiences such as the China trip in the meantime.

So there are quite a few things I definitely want to accomplish before I leave, but alas a blog is hardly the right place to broadcast them. I’ve got some time up my sleeve to tie up some loose ends and to get started on some new things, and for the first time in ages I feel more than confident that I’ll get it all done with plenty of time left over to enjoy the time I have left with the people and places I love.

see and be scene

i had a fairly serious job interview in the city today. forty-five stories up melbourne central tower. i did my best not to look out the window, even though the view was literally awesome. what is it about job interviews that stresses people out so much? is it simply because we hang so many of our future aspirations on them? i don’t think it’s that simple. there are just too many problems inherent in the format of being lined up (as if against a wall) in front of a panel of judges, whose function is basically to sniff out and expose any character flaws, dubious motivations or emotional instabilities.

but then i got to thinking, it’s probably the only option there is. personally i would probably prefer to sit some kind of test (with lots of multiple choice questions, where the correct answer can easily be deduced by a process of elimination) or have the whole thing judged entirely on the merits of an application letter or essay, but that’s just me: my writing skills far outweigh my speaking skills (am occassionally prone to st-st-st-stuttering when under pressure), and i notoriously go to water when being interviewed for anything of any significance, major or minor, regardless of quantity or quality of preparation.

this is fairly daunting, really. unless i want to work in part-time/casual hospitality jobs for the rest of my days, i’m gonna have to start getting wise. and you can’t apply the ‘practise makes perfect’ dictum, either: the better you are at job interviews, the less of them you will inevitably end up suffering. so the sheer fact that you keep going for job interviews is probably indicative of your inherent ineptitude firstly, and your inability to learn secondly.

let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though. i don’t find out about this interview until april (gotta rendezvous with HQ, i suppose, those homing pigeons like to take their time), and i have a back-up plan lined up for this friday. surely i’m at least 50% successful? if not in interviews, then in life?

anyway, in preparing for my interview, i stumbled across this hilarious thread. please note that i didn’t find that thread by googling “cosplay sluts,” unlike the person who stumbled upon raced rabidly towards this very journal after googling “demure japanese girls.” wish i was joking.

i’m trying really hard to get into this. like i’m really trying. it’s hard! probably the densest (most dense…none more dense) work of fiction i’ve ever read. in fact it’s half like reading a “why, it’s elementary, watson!”-type detective story, half like reading an in-depth academic history of the church in the middle ages. and i’m not the most church-savvy at the best of times. i know that as the story progresses, eco’s ulterior motives will become more apparent, but right now (abuot 100 pages in) it’s hard to reconcile what’s going on within the walls of the abbey, outside the walls of the abbey, and inside eco’s semiotic mind. basically, i know that the whole thing will tie together nicely, if mysteriously, and i won’t have wasted my time with all this carry-on about monks and franciscans and the papacy and burnings-at-the-stake. still, given the academic nature of the novel, the writing is still very emotive; really captures the god-fearing vernacular in a highly literate and effective way. will report back soon (or not, depending on how long it takes me).

what can be said about heath ledger? i loved this guy. i loved everything he ever did, and as an australian was constantly proud of everything that he achieved, both at home and overseas. i am absolutely certain he was oscar material (as if his first nomination wasn’t proof enough) and the circumstances of his death are just tragic. no words of mine can add to what has already been said; heath was a rare talent and we will always be in debt to his contributions to film. i know the dark knight will be absolutely phenomenal. you will be missed.

i know i said updates would be more frequent, but that means they come at the cost of actual content. deal with it.

so long, friends.

the artifice of memory

i owe it to myself to write a review of atonement.

the acting was strong. i didn’t know keira knightly could ever be anything other than a gangly, cockney soccer player, a second-rate lizzy bennett or just a sex symbol, but she does alright here. the other dude was pretty good as well. in fact, the movie opens strongly: the first act is a fine display of white-knuckle period drama in the same vein as gosford park, but it’s all completely downhill from there. the one saving grace was an extended tracking shot on the beach at dunkirk which does its damndest to convince us that, yes, war is bad, and it’s ugly, and if you can make any sense out of it then you’re probably already mad. but besides this brief meditation, the narrative remains, for (at least) the entire second half, completely out of focus. the resolution seemed not only forced, but painfully contrived. it was the cinematic equivalent of “…and then i woke up.” obviously, the transposition from literature to cinema hasn’t treated this story well. i’m sure ian mcewan’s novel goes about its business in a more poetic and meaningful way, but i am left with one overwhelming feeling: i sure am glad i didn’t spend 500 pages finding it out.

moreover, the narrative that i have seen described as “jaw-droppingly powerful” and “redemptive,” among other things, failed to convince me. i wanted to see some revenge, but none of the characters had any strength of conviction, nor was there any discernable moral (aside from the tacked-on deus ex machina mentioned above). nabokov said in the epilogue to lolita that a story doesn’t need any moral, and that when writing a book he has “no other purpose than to get rid of that book.” i agree with him, and indeed, his book doesn’t have any particular moral (arguably). but at least that story was stunningly, beautifully told. atonement-the-film went flaccid after the first half-hour. i saw this thing over a week ago now, so my criticism might be a bit blurry, but my frustration remains as virile as ever.

oh, wait…spoiler alert. bit late now. but consider yourself warned.

i was thinking about how many lists i write and how i like to write them and how everybody has a ‘top 10′ this or that and how they are all over blogs and reviews sites and whatnot. here’s a brief example:

top five reasons i should go back to europe:

• to see sebastian and the grom crew.
• visit florence and check out what all this ‘renaissance’ hoo-ha is about.
• two words: minging birds.
• learn another language.
• russia and the trans-siberian railway.

i’ve come to the conclusion that blogs and the likes are especially well-suited to these kinds of applications for the precise reason that they are impossible to interrupt and argue with. my reasoning is this: nobody gets listened to on the internet, unless you’re perez hilton or a new york times journalist. chances are you’re not either of these, and so the typical internet user will treat you as a soulless, anonymous moron with nothing intelligent to say. anybody with a keyboard and a phone line can get on a forum and spout their narrow opinions on (literally) any subject conceivable to man. a list is an economically efficient way to streamline these opinions. i’m not saying it’s a bad thing. i like a list. but i recognise their function: getting as many opinions across in as short a time as possible. it’s the fastest way to forge an identity online (besides, i suppose, any arbitrary response to the timeless ‘asl?’ question). anyway that’s just what i was thinking. i should be reading more academic stuff about online culture, but there is hardly time with all the novels i’ve got lying around.

been spending a rather large amount of time fraternising in and around the ‘melbourne independent music community’ lately – partly by choice, partly by association. the upside is, of course, exposure to some truly incredible up-and-coming bands and artists, as well as discovering some of those who are comfortable simply frequenting cosy local sit-ins, playing to an ever-faithful troupe of like-minded bohemian punters. these kinds of shows are often more like poetry recitals than actual gigs, but on the other hand, the scene we have here in melbourne is seemingly infinite, and on some of those lonely drives home, ears still ringing, i often find myself floating in a shallow melancholy. it comes with my realisation that i have a strange tendency to look beyond our shores for music that truly inspires me, when in reality, the intimacy and familiarity of local music always, always hits home harder. and it seems that the homogenous, ever-so-slightly predictable and prevalent indie community at large is finally starting to take notice of some of the unique, vibrant talent we are producing.

but, being the music industry, there’s usually a slight air of arrogance wherever you go. it’s inevitable. even those that begin with the humblest of intentions fall victim to a discerning cycle of rhetoric and ‘integrity versus utility’ judgement at the slightest hint of popularity. i’m not naming any names – i’m not even referring to any particular peeople in particular. it’s just a saddening trend that is all too painfully obvious to anybody who flirts on the outskirts of a scene – something i have been doing a lot of over the last five or six months – and it’s gotten to a point where i find myself torn between reverance and something like inverted jealousy. there’s this delicate balance of genuine warmth and passion on the one hand, and systematic intimidation (in the form of closed-door membership) on the other.

i love my city. i will always love melbourne and i will always come home to it. even at 21 i know that is true. and most of the time i feel like i belong here. but occasionally, i don’t; i get alienated, in over my head, lost, alone, whatever. that’s why i’ve been writing lots of music lately. actually, it’s the most prolific i’ve been since my high school days.

current playlist

the strokes – is this it?
the cribs – men’s needs, women’s needs, whatever
the maccabees – colour it in
over it – silverstrand
the cure – s/t
bright eyes – i’m wide awake, it’s morning
the decemberists – castaways and cut-outs
the psychedelic furs – s/t
trans am – the red line
the clash – s/t
annuals – be he me

notice the jarring lack of aussie bands?

there was so much more to write in this blog, but i kinda like the direction it ended up taking instead. until next time, so long.

the silent disco

good evening, readers. i know that my latest absense from the old blogosphere has been pretty lengthy. without making excuses (would i ever do that?) you can attribute this break to my desktop computer and the desk that it sits upon – an awkward height for any boy to deal with. it was giving me headaches and back pain aplenty, so i did what any normal person would do in my situation – bought a new laptop computer!

oh, those koreans! long story short, it wasn’t cheap, but it was worth it. i feel up-to-date again, although this latest macbook air is just plain silly. and all things considered, vista has been running exceptionally well (at least since i installed the service pack release candidate). anyways, this entry isn’t all fun and games.

i just wanted to say a few words about clinton grybas. now, those of you who know me well know that i have two passions in this world: getting fired up watching afl football, and talking shit about the state of journalism and the media. well, clinton grybas was easily the best afl commentator in the country and – for the first time in a long time – i found myself getting actually emotional hearing all the news reports about the death of a well-known person. he was charismatic, honest, enthusiastic, natural, funny and clearly passionate. it was so refreshing to hear a good young talent calling the football (triple m doesn’t count; i can never tell the difference beteween huddo, damo, richo, stevo, jonno and boof). his on- and off-field interviews were fantastic and quite simply he made most other football callers sound like amateurs. i was a massive fan of this guy and i’m really, really sorry that he’s gone.

anyways. i’ve been making a concerted effort to actually play some of the video games that have been gathering dust on my shelf. notably: call of cthulhu and grid wars.

if we’re talking about geometry wars clones (and you know we are), grid wars is the best you can get. make no mistake: these old-school arcade games are monstrously hard and take years to master. i haven’t been challenged like this by a video game in a long time. there’s a really great review of it here, and i also have to give them credit for the screenshots. true story: microsoft wouldn’t let the developer host grid wars on his site anymore because it was “too good” a clone of geometry wars. i’d say it’s better, actually. you can download it, and other geometry wars clones for the pc, here.

next up is call of cthulhu. having been a casual lovecraft fan for a while, i was really keen to check out this game, not just because of its story but also its design. i can honestly say this is one of the scariest games i have ever played. it’s set in 1922 new england, and the washed-out, grainy graphics really suit.

the whole atmosphere of the game is decidedly morbid, and you will not at any stage feel comfortable while playing it. it’s not all hairy – in fact, you don’t even pick up a weapon to defend yourself until halfway through the game. there is no on-screen health meter, and your sanity will waver whenever you see something gruesome, causing your vision to distort and blur. whether you’re a lovecraft fan or not, this is a great old-school adventure game that’s thick on the story and foreboding setting.

i’m also really looking forwards to spore. i swear this game will be revolutionary. like simcity (and, to a lesser extent, games like civilisation) before it, this is a game that takes reality and makes it playable. well, not literally of course. but it reflects everything we think we know about technology and the world around us. in this case, they have taken on the biological and philosophical implications of evolution itself and transposed them into cute pixelated characters. for those of you that don’t know, players design their own creatures and watch them pass through various stages of evolution, culminating in space exploration.

the entire game universe will be created by the players. that means that every landscape, every character and every character interaction is ‘determined’ by player action (or inaction): a simulated reflection of the cause-and-effect nature of evolution itself. this one will surely be dissected into a billion pieces in any given melbourne university cultural studies subject over the next few years, and with good reason. you can choose to research another planet’s lifeforms, or annihilate them. or you can pump huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to simulate a greenhouse effect. or you can just play around making adorable little creatures.

anyways. i’m in the throes of applying to go overseas. yes, i realise i don’t need anybody’s explicit permission to do this, but since i’m looking for a job in japan, i kinda do. with any luck this will be happening within the next couple of months. that also means that this blog will be getting a lot more attention as it will be one of the only lifelines connecting me to the real world. i might even decide to take a photo or two. i’ve also been writing a lot more music than most of you are accustomed to lately, and have been getting started on numerous short stories and even some script ideas. so don’t touch that dial!

this whole idea stems from my desire to sample as many new things as possible, with a minimum of preconceived prejudice. i know this has probably prevented me from experiencing certain things in the past but i sincerely believe i’m more open-minded these days (within reason, of course), even if i barely remember expressing opinions on anything. for example, who would have ever thought that the amy winehouse album would make it on to my ‘best of 2007′ list? swimming around my head at the moment are aspirations of moving out of home and a career change, to name only the two most pertinent. so, you know, hit me up if you wanna try some peyote or something.

the american election is happening again. i know this entry is already way long so i won’t dwell on it for too long (as much as i would like to), but i will just say this: barack obama is the most sensible, level-headed, likeable and genuine american politian i can remember having ever listened to. it would be an absolute tragedy for democracy and common-sense everywhere were he not to a) win the democratic nomination and b) subsequently win the election. not that i can see the republicans getting up (no pun intended), but i fear that your run-of-the-mill yank is more ready for a female president than a black one, given the choice. ironically, it’s amazing how many americans don’t feel obligated to vote in their own country’s election, and then get up on their high horse about how great their nation is, not to mention wars in other countries that they have no business commenting on (or fighting in).

but perhaps the thing that bothers me the most is the ‘family tree’ of american politics that we’re looking at, should hillary clinton win:

bush (R)-> clinton (D) -> bush (R) -> clinton (D).

surely we can think a little more laterally than that, people. or can we? increasingly, the american (and british, and even australian) governments have been operating on an economy of fear. the ability of regular citizens to think – and indeed, vote – for themselves is carefully controlled by press agents, spokespeople, speech writers, major news networks, and so on. it doesn’t take a noam chomsky to realise how biased all mainstream news outlets are, one way or the other. we’re talking about an irrational, generalised fear: not of any one person, or a single ‘doomsday’ event, but of an imagined, fictionalised, mythologised entity that threatens the (again imagined) ideals of western society. like ‘terrorism.’ or ‘the enemy.’ or ‘those who hate democracy.’ there is enough uncertainty, enough ambiguity, in western cultures as to foster a loss of identity and fear of the unknown (most notoriously, changes in economy and government), which essentially results in people being told how and what to think, and having them buy into it. it’s the only constant we can rely on.

i know this sounds like sensationalist propaganda (no better than the rhetoric that i’m apparently criticising), but the difference is that what i’m saying is true. even letterman is getting in on the joke. funny, yes, but also kinda scary.

seen some good movies lately, notably hotel chevalier and the darjeeling limited. darjeeling was more or less what i expected, but the real surprise for me was hotel chevalier; so simple, but so funny, and so sexy. who knew natalie portman would look great naked?

also got to meet jason schwartzman.

this was spectactularly awesome, and i wanted to talk to him about how great melbourne is and how ‘west coast’ reminds me of all sorts of sunny polaroid photographs of america and how i could more or less quote every line from ‘rushmore’ and boy oh boy how jealous i am of his career. but alas, there was no time, and i’ll just have to settle for this awesome photograph. super nice guy, it must be said.

i’ve also renewed my interest in anime. i’m about one third of the way through monster, which is an achievement in itself. talk about a mindfuck; this show runs the full gamut of emotions, exploring all kinks of human relationships and motivations. it’s definitely more rewarding the more you invest in it, and unlike most anime, is not flashy at all. there are no special effects (or giant fighting robots), no pretty lighting effects, etc. what it is is a bleak and realistic psychological drama. and, having first-hand experience to draw from, the rendering of germany is spot on.

not that flashy anime is a bad thing.

plug plug.

yes, it’s australia day weekend next week. i always look forwards to it; the weather’s always nice and invariably somebody hosts a wild party. this one threatens to be the biggest yet. what could be more australian? somebody (i won’t name names) once told me that “patriotism isn’t cool, dude.” up the punx! i am proud to be an aussie, even though i’m keen to jetset. and hell, i’ve even gone this whole distance without mentioning that as of november last year, australia is fiercely and proudly left-wing again! fantastic. for the first time in my living memory, we have an eloquent, intelligent and genuine politician leading our country – not to mention one who won’t be cashing in his super-annuation for a few years yet. so, let’s everyone get on it next weekend!

click on through to see my best and worst of 2007!